Attempting to cut through the crap of religion in order to get to Jesus.

Current Affairs

08/24/2012

One of my readers and friends had an excellent comment and question about my post from earlier in the week. Gerard is always extremely insightful, and a bit prophetic, as his question leads right into the part of this issue that I wanted to address next: Morality.

I spent quite a bit of time talking about how we all act out of a place of desperation. In doing so, I spent some time placing people like Jeffrey Dahmer, the famous psychotic killer from years ago, on the same level of standing with people like Mother Teresa of Calcutta. On the surface, it might seem like I was employing a tactic to get a rise out of my readers or going to the extreme for dramatic effect. This is not the case.

My insightful friend, however, reasonably raised the question of moral relativism, which could be easily assumed from reading such comparisons. Have I fallen into a sort of fatalism that leads to a vague, pliable morality?

In order to answer that question with my usual, circuitous and long-winded approach, we need to back up a bit for the sake of clarity. If Thoreau is correct, and we all, indeed, lead lives of quiet desperation, then what does that really mean? It seems like people make rational decisions and do normal, productive things on a fairly regular basis. A woman gets up in the morning, gets ready and goes to work. She has done the calculations, and she makes more than her husband. It doesn't make sense for her to not go to work. She has a family that has needs, and her decision to go to work, rather than sleep in and watch TV all afternoon and night, is a natural and seemingly healthy routine behavior. There is no apparent desperation in such activity. She may, very well, be exhausted, and she may not care for her job. Her heart may even be back in her warm bed. Yet, she chooses against desperation, and she goes to work. Clear, rational thought. With that example, it is difficult to see Thoreau's case.

So, let's look at another case. On February 27th of this year, a young man in Ohio, got up and went to school before the day started. A number of students were in the cafeteria, enjoying breakfast and some conversation with their friends. The aforementioned boy, silently and without warning, stood up and began shooting.

I was listening to the radio that morning, as I was driving to work in Seattle. I remember that the rumors immediately out of that school were that this boy was a loner and was continuously being bullied by the kids he had shot. This was a clear case of revenge by a tormented and tortured high school boy. Even if I had been popular in high school, I would be able to resonate with the anger and hurt this shooter must have felt. No, a "good" person doesn't shoot others, but motive, here, made this a more rational and, at least, understandable crime. We file it away in our little boxes. Maybe we sit down with our kids and teach them about the dangers of bullying others or of being bullied until experiencing a psychotic break. We then can sleep well at night, knowing that the world still works as expected, and all is right.

I know I, and others to whom I had spoken, experienced an overwhelming amount of shock and horror the very next day. It was a destabilizing moment, as I read the public transcripts of the young man's hearing. My neat little categories had been shattered. The shooter had not ever even attended the Ohio high school, where he had killed one and injured four others! He hadn't been bullied or tormented by his victims. They were total strangers to him. When asked why he had committed the heinous act, the killer, in a state of dead calm, responded that he was simply curious to see what it would be like to shoot some kids.

For this 17 year old, his decision on the morning of February 27, 2012, was as natural and rational as that of the woman who went to work, simply because it was a workday. I’m not at all saying that these two people, one fictional and the other real, would be anywhere near the same level morally in terms of behavior. There is no question that one acted in a way that any sane person would see as evil, while the other seemed to have selfless and loving, good intentions for her daily habits.

I am not talking about behavior or the values that drive them, however. I used these two examples, because, if we dig deeper, I believe that the dedicated mom and the brutal killer are both acting out of the same core drives and central "place". If we stay at the surface level, merely judging behavioral outcomes and the surface motives that cause them, things become quickly convoluted. We can curb behaviors, medicate people, attend recovery group meetings, join a cult, or simply institutionalize a broken person, but have we gotten any closer to what is truly the deepest place of hurt and isolation? Looking merely at behavior and the causing values and motives, we don't get a clear picture of the real person.

By way of illustration, let's look at a typical repeat offender, who has spent most of his adult life locked up. We examine his background, and we read deterministic factors into all aspects of his life leading to his first crime. Perhaps his father was an abusive drunk, who was addicted to cocaine and heroin, among other prescription drugs. Perhaps his dad had slept with a number of women while married to the criminal's mother. And maybe the dad left when his son was only four, leaving him without guidance or any sense of stability. He grew up poor, and his desperation was always glaringly apparent in the form of anger and acting out in school and at home. He was headed toward prison, and the behavioral outcome and consequences were understandable and even expected. We lock him up. We keep him away from good, "civilized" people. His life as a child predetermined where he would go.

I am far too protected when focusing on hypotheticals and famous cases, so I want to bring this home a bit to make my point more personal. In describing the background of the life-long inmate, I was exactly describing my own upbringing and that of my brother. However, neither of us has ever spent even a single night incarcerated. I am a writer and former pastor, and I have been married, without even being tempted to cheat, for more than 18 years. I am well educated, with a plan to go for my PhD next fall. I have three beautiful children, and I make sure that I remind them, every single day, of how much I love and cherish them. I struggled in school to get work done and to get good grades. I didn't ever have a man in my life who took me under his wing to help guide me. As a matter of fact, I realized the other day that I have never, ever in my life been hugged by a male authority figure or told by one that I am valuable and good. Not even once.

My brother, Jon, had it even worse, in my estimation. He was an infant when our father abandoned us. All he had was the word of our mom that he was better off not having that man in his life. I remember the chaos and fear of having our father around, but Jon does not have the benefit of experience. Yet, he has graduated from law school and has passed the bar exam on his first attempt. He and his lovely wife have a home and three awesome kids as well!

Now, I am not saying any of this to point out how great my brother and I are (though he is one of the most brilliant people I have ever known). Actually, I'm saying quite the opposite. When it comes down to the true, base drives in us and the incarcerated criminal, we are the same. Yes, there is a difference in moral standing in terms of behavior. However, behavior is merely a symptom of what is happening internally. It's all connected. We cannot neatly categorize and explain our world by looking at motivating, possibly deterministic, conditions or circumstantial evidence. “Out of the heart, the mouth speaks.” I would also add: “Out of the heart, we do stuff.” I do believe that my addition is just as eloquent as the original quote. Right.

At any rate, I am talking about the central place in us. Some would call it the “soul”. I think that term has far too many religious connotations for many of my readers. So, I beg your pardon, as I, for simplicity sake, call that central place of passion, fire, desperation, and dreams, the “heart” from this point forward. As you can tell from context, I am not referring to the muscle that pumps blood, nor am I pointing to the biological functioning of the brain at its emotional center. I have to get a bit metaphysical, because there is, whether biologists like it or not, a part of us that is ethereal and, somehow, More. If you are a pure determinist, I ask that you suspend disbelief for a bit, in order to not allow your system of understanding to interfere with following my thread of thought here. Is that okay?

Also, I am not a behavioral psychologist, biologist, or human physiologist. I am coming at this from a combination of my philosophical and theological education, coupled with a heaping pile of subjective experience. So, if you plan to hold up my thinking to the rigorous requirements of scientific inquiry or the volumes of scholarship devoted to physical, behavioral, and biological knowledge, I'm afraid I will be left sorely wanting. I am a hack, but I still think I may be on to something.

When we focus only on the heart, I get out of bed in the morning and write out of the same desperation that drives the criminal to steal or kill. I am desperate. My brother is desperate. I have spent years in counseling, attempting to somehow get past my sense of loss and my fear of abandonment. I struggle with being a big, strong guy with a wit that can destroy people, yet desiring to not take what I want out of life by force. Right now, we are so unhappy with our life situation, that I fear daily the loss of our home, our marriage, and our livelihood. Yet, we don't have the ability to move to a place where we can be successful. We are simply broke. I keep writing, hoping it will payoff someday. I cannot be a pastor, and, were it not for writing, I have absolutely no ability to be hired. I am stuck, and I am desperate to get unstuck. It is actually a crisis, demanding immediate and constant attention. I am not far from knocking over a convenience store.

All that being said, I am not giving a free pass to bad behavior. I simply need to function. I have to keep trying to make a living. I write. Even though I could have ended up as a career criminal, I did not. At every high school reunion, my former classmates cannot believe that I am not wearing a prison jumpsuit. I guess I was an underachiever as a criminal. While behavior is symptomatic, I do not advocate the mass release of prisoners. There is responsibility and moral accountability when sharing the planet in community with others. However, giving behavior its proper place and going deeper to the heart, we can see that Thoreau may have been onto something.

What if all of our behaviors are merely symptomatic of our desperation? What are the implications of such an idea, we're it true? If we take religion out of the argument for just a bit, how do we reach any kind of consensus as to the moral quality of behavior and motives? Am I dancing too close to the fires of relativism with this, or have I safely avoided that slippery slope? Does it matter?

I'd love your thoughts, and I promise I will take this further early next week!

08/16/2012

I have started at least 20 new posts in the last two months, and none of them have seen the light of day. I didn't like the way they sounded or felt. One of them smelled like soup. I had a thousand or more reasons for rejecting each one. The core problem was that none of them were perfect, at least as far as I define that word.

I have a heart and a passion for writing and teaching. While I am currently bouncing at a bar, I don't…exactly...have the same level of enthusiasm for being there as I do for writing and teaching. I am fully aware that my posts are riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. In fact, many of my words are ones I just made up! I'm aware of all of that, and I even embrace those errors as somewhat unavoidable.

My ideal of perfection is one that is impossible to reach. Even Jesus didn't attain it! The difference is that Jesus wasn't foolish enough to set the bar of Perfection where I set mine. I define "Perfect" as having every single reader of every piece of my writing to not only love it, but to fully agree with it and to love me as a result! I don't think that's too much to ask in such a politically and socially divided climate as this... Jesus not only failed to win the approval of all people, what he had to say made people angry enough to crucify him!

So, I have been dealing with getting past all of this. I want to write, but my expectations on the reception that my writing receives will have to dramatically change. Otherwise, I will never be able to move forward with my life's passion.

So, I have come to the following conclusions, and I think they are applicable to many people, whatever their passions and desires for their lives. If you are going to go after your dreams, here are a few ideas that I have found are necessary to embrace:

1) Perfect is a word and idea that must be rooted out of your dictionary. First, it isn't possible. It is merely a construct based in a destructive, zero-defect business model. Secondly, it falsely depends on your ability to exercise control over realities that are not in your sphere of influence. For me, that was my desire to control the reactions of others. I would actually spend hours thinking, specifically, of each person I knew who might read that particular piece of writing, and I would labor to become assured that each of the people in my mind would be in 100% agreement with the text and would like me. No wonder I was given anti-anxiety medication! How on earth could I ever expect to have control over the reactions of others? I had to make the word "Perfect" taboo and blot it out of my lexicon.

2) While passion is what drives you to take risks and go after your dreams, eventually you will have to pull from other sources as well for your motivation. Humans are fickle creatures. Marriages are awesome at first, while the couple is madly in love and can't keep their hands off of each other. However, eventually sex on every surface of the new apartment is no longer the norm. The couple looks around and truly takes in the detritus of all of their frolicking. They will have to actually serve food on those previously defiled countertops. Maintaining the relationship, going to work, paying the bills, sickness and health, and all of the other aspects of marriage come crashing into their carefully-constructed paradise. If the couple does not have other wells from which to draw life and motivation, the fledgling bond will be in mortal danger while barely out of the gate.

Now, I am not fatalistic or negative about marriage or motivation. I have learned, however, that sex and passion can only take a couple so far. I have been married to the most beautiful and wonderful woman on earth for almost 19 years. There has been ebb and flow to the passion in our relationship. I am extremely hot, so she has always had trouble keeping her hands off of me. But on many occasions we have found that we are out of whip cream and the trapeze in our bedroom needs repair. Perhaps I've said too much… You get the point. We have to be very careful that we don't only have desire and passion. We have to look to our Creator for purpose and meaning. We also have to look internally, finding the drive and commitment to go forward, even when we don't "feel like it".

As an undergrad, I was a Theology and Philosophy double major. I could not have chosen a more writing-intensive educational path. I had to crank out an average of 4 papers every week for my entire time there. Whether I wanted to write it or not, it was due. My passion for the subject helped to get me started and to drive my search for more information. There is nothing, however, romantic and adventurous about doing the work of writing endless papers, citing sources, correcting formatting, and line editing over and over again. I always pictured these great philosophers and theologians, sitting by the light of an oil lamp with quill in hand, always aware that the parchment or scroll before them was taking on the divine substance of eternal art. The wisdom they poured out would last for eternity, and they floated in blissful reality of total awareness of the weight of the glory of their words. Writing isn't like that at all! I have been deceived by my own fantasies! Yes, I am that much of a nerd, that I fantasize about old, dead writers. But, you know, I never had a late paper in college, and I never received less than an "A" on my work. If I was able to do it then, I can do it now. Even when I don't "feel like it". I can do it out of my solid and committed love of writing.

Writing is work. Marriage is work. I love both, and will never walk away from either. And, you know what? Every now and then, quite often, actually, in the midst of all of the hard work, I am hit with a revolutionary rush of passion! Then, out comes the whip cream! I just hate cleaning it all out of my keyboard afterward…

3) Weed out the haters. A month ago, Scott Walker survived the recall election in Wisconsin. There were a number of great reasons for him to be recalled. However, Wisconsin has a political system that allows for anyone to vote in any primary. So, the conservatives came out in droves for the democratic primary, and they voted for the same candidate that Walker defeated in the first election. They made sure Walker would not have to face a strong and capable candidate. Then, the Koch brothers spent a ludicrous amount of money on the campaign, assuring Walker's survival. After all, they bought his first election, and they needed to protect their investment. I was very upset, and I tweeted that I was ashamed of Wisconsin, and I was moving out of the state. It was copied to my Facebook page.

Now, I do feel strongly that Walker is doing damage to my state. I believe that with all of my heart. I think he is not capable of thinking for himself, and he is a wholly owned subsidiary of a number of corporations and individuals who care nothing for the people of my once great state. Their motivation is greed. Pure and simple. These are evil people with evil intentions. They do evil.

However, I admit that I was emotional, and I want to never publicly speak out of such a strong and raw place. My "friends" on Facebook who lean to the right politically, had a field day. It was like a feeding frenzy, with "friends" shaming me, gloating, attacking, and offering to help me pack. When I was a pastor, I had to continue to make nice, my role being one of always building bridges. I admit that I should not have posted that. In the song, "Drops of Jupiter" by the band, Train, there is a lyric that says this: "Can you imagine…your best friend always sticking up for you, even when I know your wrong?" They are as convinced of my error in thinking as I am of the evil nature of Scott Walker. I was upset! I wasn't thinking clearly. Be my friend, not a shark smelling blood in the water. I have not gone anywhere near Facebook since.

The thing that really struck me? Two weeks after that election, Obamacare was voted in. Those same people were screaming and freaking out! And you know what, I didn't say anything. I left them alone. I didn't gloat. They think that Obama is the prophecied AntiChrist of Scripture. For real. That isn't an exaggeration. They are wrong, of course. They are also ignorant. A number of those who attacked me actually said, "That's it! This country is going to Hell in a hand basket. I'm moving to Canada!" Can we all say, "ironic"?

I need Facebook for my work. So, I will be more careful about what I post. However, I don't need that kind of negativity in my life. Everyone has a right to disagree with me. In fact, a number of conservative friends contacted me privately to bless me and gently challenge me a bit. That was awesome. I don't need the negativity of the haters and attackers, who wallow in their own ignorance under the guise of "friend". So, screw them. I am cleaning out my friends list. They obviously don't like the way I think anyway, so I will be doing them a favor.

I would encourage you, before you pursue your dreams, to have healthy boundaries with all of those who don't have your best in mind. Those who seek to cut you down, so they can feel the self-righteousness of believing in their own "correctness". Weed them out, like the cancerous plague that they are. However, keep all of the people who disagree with you, but are healthy and loving. They don't agree with you, but they love you anyway. Otherwise, you will be only surrounded by like-minded people. That sounds more like Evangelical, Tea Party church than friendship and community. You need to be challenged in order to grow.

4) Just do it. I have this awful tendency of avoiding my dreams and my passions. I am very afraid that I will not succeed at them. If I fail at other things, I can pick myself back up and move on. If I fail at writing, what will become of me? I hate with vehement hate kind of hating hatred the current condition of my life. I had to get to the point where staying put scared me much more than taking the risk of pursuing my dreams. I looked ahead to my future a couple of months ago, and I felt as if I was standing on the edge of a pitch black abyss. I literally saw nothing. I don't ever want to feel that again. I would much rather face a blank page daily or speak to tens of thousands of people than ever feel that again. The abyss paralyzed me. Fear can be a powerful motivator at times. It triggers our fight or flight response instincts.

I immediately started researching schools and writing careers. I have read a number of books on the subject of making a living in freelance writing. I have looked at programs for schools all over the world. I could continue to do research for the next decade, make sure I am SUPER ready. Then, at the end of that decade, I would need just a little bit more time. Make sure I have everything in order. At some point, I must just do it.

Our ability to self actualize is very powerful, and dreaming about a life of pursuing our desires - seeing our dreams come true - releases the same chemicals in our brain as if we had actually accomplished our goals. Disney has used this formula for years, very successfully drugging our children. They sit in front of the TV, seeing children their age who are famous and talented. All of their dreams have come true! They are in a high school that is radically diverse, but all people of all races get along. The teachers are all supportive and loving. They get to do musical numbers for their classmates, who always cheer wildly and worship the ground upon which they walk. When you wish upon a star… All of your dreams can come true. Come to Disney World, where, after every ride and attraction, you have to exit through the gift shop to buy more Disney paraphernalia. This over-priced stuffed animal will inspire you to make your dreams come true. As our children take in all of these images of an unattainable, utopic reality, the chemicals of self actualization flow through their brain. Maybe my kid can sing well enough to take their high school, followed by Madison Square Garden, by storm. However, why buy the cow, when you get the milk for free? They don't need to leave the couch to become superstars! Disney makes them feel as if they have already done it!

I don't hate Disney. I am not advocating boycott. The marketing departments of every corporation make use of this technique. Why? It sells products! It works! So, we have to be parents and turn off the TV, ignoring the protestations of our children. We then command them to go and pursue their dreams. Go and do it! Sometimes we have to parent ourselves in this area as well. I know I have to turn off the TV in my head and just write, rather than being satisfied to live off the chemically false reality where I have already created the Ultimate American Novel of All Time. Get an idea and write.

So, how do I summarize all of this? I have decided to go back to school for my PhD as of Fall, 2013. We will be leaving the Green Bay Area. I am not absolutely sure about school or program. I have to retake the GRE, because my scores are outdated. I am also not positive about the program as of yet. I am a bit burned out on Theology, so I am thinking about English Lit, with an emphasis in Creative Writing. Half of my dream is teaching in a university, and I need a PhD to do that. The other half of my dream, of course, is writing. I am ramping up my freelance writing business. I will continue with Heresy of the Month as a personal blog, where I can wrestle with issues and controversial topics. My Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and WordPress pages with become my professional sites. The WordPress site I am building will be at billsergott.com. Heresy of the Month is far too caustic of a title for attracting professional businesses. I will be splitting my time, writing feature articles for various publications, and writing for organizations, i.e. marketing copy, brochures, website content, speeches, grant writing, or whatever else a particular company might need.

I am no longer a "bouncer in a bar, hoping to find something meaningful to do". I'm not leaving my job as a bouncer yet, because it helps pay bills. I now have a new, defining reality, based in what I do, rather than what I hope to do one day.

I am now a Writer. I am working toward being a Professor.

I will not get bogged down in false ideas of perfection. Instead, I will write with excellence, hitting every piece out of the park.

I will not rely only on "feeling passionate" about writing any longer. Instead, I will focus on my love of writing in order to stay committed to doing what I love every day, with or without whipped cream.

I will not listen to voices that seek to be better or "more right" than I. Instead, I will surround myself with people who are for me, wanting me to succeed, and challenging me with deeper, affirming ideas as well as lovingly-argued, conflicting ideas.

I will not waste time in too much preparation and self-pleasuring daydreaming. Instead, I will simply brainstorm ideas every day, and I will spend the bulk of my day writing about those ideas. In the midst of that, I will take on the hard work of administrative tasks and selling my writing.

I will be doing what I love, and it will be much more powerful than simply wishing on a star.

What is your core, driving dream? Are you able to articulate it at this point? How have you pursued or avoided that dream or those dreams? If you are further down the road than I, what points would you take away from this list, or what would you add?

05/24/2012

I have actually written 4 different blog posts this week, each one continuing my train of thought on the subject of God, God's promises, and our identity. All 4 of them were hitting the 3K-4K word count, and I wasn't anywhere close to completing the thought in any of them. Blogs really don't work if the blogger continuously leaves all thoughts tumbling into an bottomless ravine at the end of each post.

Therefore I would, each day, open a new file and start from scratch. Don't worry, I didn't delete all of those posts. It turns out that each of the four is set up as a different viewpoint and focus in the same general subject area. I took each of them and moved them into my Scrivener book writing software. I was waiting for things to settle down before even looking at my book again, but all of these posts need solid treatment that only a book can adequately explore. So, in spite of my own dumb plans to limit my book work based on life circumstances, I now suddenly find myself to be approximately 25,000 words into my first manuscript. I guess I should go ahead and be more intentional about it.

As a result, it is quite possible that the quality of this blog would suffer, and I don't want that. What I would like to do during the process of writing my book (because of how my ADHD brain works), write short questions and bullet points containing my scattered and disconnected thoughts. Some will be on topic, but most will not. I will number them for simplicity sake, and I ask that you would comment, HERE ON THIS BLOG rather than on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, via email, via text message, by carrier pigeon, by telegraph, or all of the other ways my friends and readers have commented and answered questions. I know that most people have been afraid to comment because of the caustic and verbally violent environments of most forums and comment areas. I promise you that I will, whether you agree with me or not, always defend you, as long as you do not start the offensive. I want just open discussion, please, so that we can create constructive dialogue.

The working title of my book, which might be helpful for steering us, is Homeless God, Restless Hearts. It is all about our search for our individual identity, the purpose and meaning of our lives, our desire for a sense of permanence and security, and how all of that works in harmony with the Presence of a nomadic, homeless God. Here is my core question(s) of exploration in the manuscript:

When God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, yet all the while being, not static, but constantly dynamic and in motion, how can we, in any real way, find an anchoring point and stability?

That's all very high theological and epistemological stuff, so, after exploring the theoretical and what scripture has to say about it, I want to spend the second part of the book exploring the practical application of all of this theory with this question as the starting point:

How can we, without falling into the extreme traps of either legalistic, conservative foundationalism or ethereal, fatalistic relativism, find a healthy and helpful middle ground for truly finding peace and a rock solid ground upon which to build the foundations of our lives to the fullest in freedom and grace?

As I am exploring these topics, I need to bounce some things off of all of you. I also need to clear out some of the things I think about that clog up my creative flow. It's cognitive constipation. This blog will be, for a few weeks, the stool softener of my psyche. Please comment by number. Also, please don't be afraid of the stuff that floats around in my head. Most of these ideas will have nothing at all to do with the book. Thanks, in advance, for your help!

Here we go:

1) God promised Abram exactly what the human heart seems to want: permanence and solid security. God promised them in the form of Land and Descendants (or legacy). Both of those promises add immortality to Abram. Abram trusts God and obeys, but only has one child and only owns one little cave, the burial place for himself and his wife, at the end of his life. Did God lie? Is God mean? Is God promising something that, as a homeless God, God doesn't have? Or is the nature of the promise something else entirely?

2) My son, Eli, is incredible. I told him this morning that he is the only person I have ever heard of who lives completely out of context. It's always easier to understand a person's words and behavior, when you understand the context. Eli has no context for anything he says or does. Is that even possible? Should I seek help?

3) I had an interview the other night for a position as a pastor in the state of New York. It was a Skype interview, my very first one. They were delightful people, and I loved talking with them. However, I am really nervous and am obsessing about it. The web cam was pulled back to show the whole committee. I always rely on nonverbal cues, expressions, gestures, etc. to get a sense of how things are going. Not that I would change my answer, but I may emphasize different aspects of some very broad subject areas. It was a bit like interviewing with my hands behind my back and blindfolded. I enjoyed them, but I walked away from my computer with absolutely no sense of whether they liked me, hated me, or were completely indifferent about me. That is really disturbing for an external processor and people-pleaser like myself. I really hope they liked me, because I really like them, and I'd love to serve them as pastor!

4) We're having a rummage sale this weekend, because we want to sell our house and simplify. We moved everything for the sale into our garage, and our garage immediately smelled like rummage sale. You know what I'm talking about? It's a musty, pungent, rummage sale/thrift store smell. The stuff didn't smell like that while inside the house. The garage didn't smell like that before setting up the sale. Is there some kind of cosmic force or rummage fairy that creates that odor, universally common among all sales of used items?

5) The Bible says we are to Know God, using the same Hebrew word for know as is used in describing the intimate knowledge that a person has of his/her spouse in the marriage bed. It is a nakedness and self-disclosure, a vulnerability, that we engage in with God. In a world where we continuously and sinfully make up moral rules of conduct and then substitute our knowledge and enforcement of those rules over others for our Knowledge of the Almighty, how can we trust anything that we know to be truth? God called the work of God's hands "Very Good", but we are looking at the work of our own hands - doctrine, dogmas, laws, and absolute truths - and we apply our reverence and worship to those created things. Only God deserves praise for the work of God's hands. We deserve only punishment for the work of ours. I'm struggling with all of that.

6) Along the same lines as question #5: Recently, after engaging in some "Knowing" with my wife, she looked at me, smiled, and said, "Way to go, Baby!" I laughed heartily. But, seriously?!? At what point did I become so old, that every successful sexual encounter with my wife is seen as a milestone worthy of celebration? Guys, help me out with this. Or all of you so good in the marital bedroom that your wife is too exhausted to speak, much less think to congratulate you? Is there an age where successful sex is officially no longer the norm but an heroic act or a miraculous event?

After that, I put my teeth back in, thanked her for the props, and shuffled off to the living room to watch reruns of "Murder She Wrote". I love that Angela Lansbury.

7) My friend, Ed, who pastors the Vineyard in Joliet, Illinois, had a massive heart attack on Monday. I adore that guy, so he HAS to get better. His wife is asking for prayer for complete healing, so please pray for him. Plus, he is only a few years older than I am. I am going to schedule my physical right away and get back to exercising. This scared me. The guy is an Irish tank. This never should have happened. So, let's all pray and get healthy!

8) In what ways is real love, God's love, like a physical substance with force, mass, and weight? How does it generate friction while still forming cohesion of persons?

9) In the interview, one of the questions is still making me think and process. It was this: "Based on your blog, you are a very progressive, liberal person. This is a progressive area, but we do have a number of conservative Christians in the church community. What have you done to reach out to conservatives and make them feel welcome, even though your worldview differs so greatly from theirs?"

ummmm.....

That was like a punch in the gut. Not that it was an unfair question. It was a very fair question. It was a great question. The Gospel is Good News for everyone, right? People who differ from me in belief system or worldview are all going to Hell, so the good news for them is that they can start to see things my way and avoid that fate. No, I'm just kidding.

One of my undergrad theology professors, teaching my one of my ethics classes, said something once that has really been helpful in these situations. She said, "When you totally disagree with a statement or action on the part of someone else, before attacking or going on the defensive, ask yourself, "What important core value is this person, group, or institution trying to protect by saying x or doing y? Do I have the same or similar core value? Most likely I do, so how can I work with this person rather than against them, beginning with this shared value as a jumping off point, in order to find consensus in a synthesized vision, organizing statement, methodology, and missional application?" Brilliant!

So, for example, the Catholic Church does not permit the use of birth control. Statistics show that more than 85% of Catholics completely ignore that teaching. At the same time, there are a number of women who benefit hormonally from medication that also causes an inability to conceive. There are also a number of people who financially, medically, or emotionally should not have any more children, but they are in a healthy, monogamous marriage and desire sexual intimacy as a key component for a happy, lasting marriage. The Church says NFP is acceptable, but NFP simply does not work. I have heard many people simply say things like, "That rule is stupid." or "The Church is backward and out of touch."

Instead of making a bunch of dialogue-killing, polarizing statements like these, what if we were to use my ethics professor's principal? What is the Catholic Church trying to protect by making this rule? Now, we have to be honest and have integrity in our questioning. No defaulting to reductionistic answers like, "They're just trying to protect their own power and oppress people. They are sexually repressed." Those are off limits, because they do not create a healthy common ground and drip with judgment. What are the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church trying to protect? Well, this rule appears with many others in the context of the Sanctity of every human life. The same doctrine includes the following: Promote life. No abortions. No masturbation (spilling sperm outside of the uterus is having contempt for the life creating power that was given us by God). No capital punishment. Quality of life for the poor. No euthanasia. Become a force for change when you see injustices done against the helpless and oppressed. Practicing active pacifism - nonviolence. Promote human flourishing at all times.

OK, since all of these are along the same thread of Life Issues, and we don't have weird, random stuff like, "Always hold a knife in your left hand and your fork in your right hand.", we seem to be able to safely make a contextual assumption that the Catholic Church is attempting to have a consistent life ethic. This is much better than a political party that is anti-abortion but pro-war, pro-gun, and pro-execution. It is also much better than the other political party that is pro-abortion, but against taxation of the poor and helpless and against capital punishment. This is why the Catholic Church doesn't tell us for whom we should vote. All politicians are inconsistent in their ethical approach to life issues. So, for the Church, ANYTHING that in any way inhibits, blocks, attacks, or ends life, even at the cellular level, is considered to be out of bounds.

I like life. I also like being consistent and having integrity. Awesome! We have common ground! Pro-choice people are not anti-life, nor do they desire to "kill as many babies as they can". They just value the life of a living, breathing, walking-around woman over the life of a fetus that is incapable of living outside of the womb. They can learn a lot about consistency and the value of every single living organism from the Pro-life people, who desire that women would be able to flourish, but that unborn women should be able to flourish as well. Pro-life people do not want to crush the lives of women, bomb abortion clinics, or go back to a time when women had no rights whatsoever. They can learn a great deal about quality of life issues from pro-choice people. As long as we are able to focus on shared values, we can love people on the extreme opposite end of the spectrum from us. We can work together to find a shared, common approach that preserves human rights for born and unborn alike. Then we can get the inefficient government out of the way and deal with this much better ourselves.

I have to keep asking myself what I truly believe conservative Evangelicals are trying to hold dear and protect. Then I can be intentional in loving "them", so that I ultimately stop seeing "them" as "them" and start seeing them as part of "us". Now, if only I could change my knee-jerk reactions to include this kind of intentionality...

10) I just got some awesome genoa salami from the deli. I am going to go make a sandwich and then get back to work!

Thanks, as always, for reading. Give us your thoughts on any one or any number of these. Or strike out on your own. I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts! I found this to be very cleansing and cathartic. I hope you do as well.

05/14/2012

I arrived, and I discovered that it was all that was promised! I had moved to Seattle, and the city, itself, is everything it was billed to be. The church community at the Shoreline Vineyard was absolutely amazing. For me, it is truly a land flowing with milk and honey.

Now, as I am writing this, I am working the door in my new job as a bouncer at Fox Harbor Pub & Grill, back in Green Bay, Wisconsin. What happened, God? Is there any reason why you showed me that land? Am I to die within sight of the fulfillment of the promise, as Moses did? How is it a promise, if I never get to realize it?

I want to break all of this down, because I am finally at a place of some clarity on this whole adventure. I have not, by any means, arrived. I still have some frustration, anger, and pain around the whole thing. I have felt, at times, abandoned, betrayed, and lost. I have now, at least, found a bit of a place of peace, because God has given me quite a bit of insight about the nature of promise, covenant, and our participation in those realities. When God gives us a vision for a promise, God fills us with a fire and passion to see, at any personal cost, the fulfillment of that promise. Of course, we will soon face the "buyer's regret" of signing this contract, but that is exactly why God lets us get excited and to burn with an all-or-nothing, consuming desire to see it all.

I have heard people make gossipy, negative comments about others who, in a moment of overwhelming emotion and desperation, commit their lives to Christ, perhaps in an altar call type of setting. An altar call, for the uninitiated, is a Protestant tradition of making people very aware of their moral and spiritual depravity, presenting the promise of salvation in Christ, and then asking people to respond by coming to the altar in the front to publicly proclaim their repentance for their depravity and their desire to have Jesus become their personal Lord and Savior. It's not my style as a pastor, but what do I know? Who am I to judge? It is precisely the emotional surge in response to the promise of being washed clean and being reborn in Jesus that seems to give us the strength to continue to persevere in living out the relationship during difficulties and while facing obstacles later in the journey. We often forget how that surge drove us to the feet of God in the first place. It's not empty, weak emotionalism that is the birthplace of faith, but the mustard seed of purpose and vision, planted by God and intended for the increase of our ability and willingness to try, risk, move, flow, fail, succeed, learn, and grow. It is not an overriding of our internal self, but an intensification of all that was hard wired in us in the womb.

It seems that Abram, later Abraham, must have been filled with that kind of emotional passion when he left the land of Harran, the land of his family and all he knew, and set out for the strange land promised him by God. He knew nothing about that land, other than God promised to prosper him there. He was an old man, far beyond the age of taking risks and being filled with vision for new adventures. Cribbage, golf, and hip replacements should have been the substance of his life, not starting over. All Genesis 12 gives us is the command of God to go to this new land, the promise of a prosperous future, and the simple phrase:

"So Abram went...".

Was it really that easy? What was going through Abram's mind? Did God show up in person to Abram and then travel with Abram to this new land, eliminating all doubt and fear? There is nothing like that in the passage. It is simply command, promise, and response. Maybe I am different, and I am less obedient than Abraham. Maybe he had that kind of simple faith that I would love to have. God says it, and I believe it. That would be wonderful, but I am much more dysfunctional and neurotic than that. I need a full conversion of my heart to take on a brand new life. I need a personal transformation each and every time God gives me something new. I am still a very, very young man (ahem), but I imagine it would be much harder as an old man like Abram.

I think the first key to unlocking the complex, mysterious reality of interacting with a living and personal God is found in a closer examination of the promise. The promise is the seed of hope and a future of prosperity and purpose. That promise is the spark of fire that launches Abram into a risk-taking uncertainty and a willingness to turn away from all that he knows and finds comfortable. Because of our own punishment/reward mentality, however, we often see the promise as a reward for good behavior. If we do it right and follow the rules, THEN we get the promise. If we don't, the promise goes away. It is a conditional promise based on a proper response. So, it is all on us, and we no longer need God. God, then, stops being King and Lord over our lives, and is reduced to a controllable and ignorable fortuneteller or life coach.

Abram kept God exalted to God's rightful place as Lord. However, I have to imagine that there was at least some questioning and struggling on Abram's part. While it is not in the biblical account, just by the very fact that Abram was human, I would think that he would have wanted to double check the source before leaping. He would want to see that God was actually the one addressing him. At some point, Abram must have reached a place of confidence, because he went.

Upon arriving in the Promised Land, Abram built a huge mansion of brick and mortar, establishing the first suburban, gated community. No, actually, he walked around. He would pitch his tent and then, breaking camp, move to a new part of the land. He wanted to explore the whole area, in order to see what God had given him.

Then God appeared to Abram and restated the promise. Why? We don't know for sure, because we aren't given that information. However, I would guess that Abraham needed to be reassured. The passage tells us that the land was occupied. Abram did not show up with an army. He had his wife and his nephew, Lot, with Lot's family along as well. They were not battle-hardened soldiers of fortune. They were nomadic herders of livestock. I don't know about your experiences with this, but I have learned, through some really awkward moments, that if I walk into someone else's yard and pitch a tent, claiming that God promised that land to me as my inheritance, the current inhabitants tend to protest. The Canaanites, unlike Abram and company, actually had multiple armies. So, once Abram saw that the land was occupied by other, armed people, who would not just kindly apologize and immediately move out upon learning of the promise of a God they did not know, based on the word of a strange, nomadic farmer, Abram probably needed some encouragement.

God showed up to remind him of the passionate vision that had brought him to this strange land in the first place. THEN, finally, Abram was able to build the mansion, and he and his wife were able to live happily ever after, never struggling or moving from that permanent, promised home. Actually, he built an altar, not a home for himself. This action was the equivalent of planting a flag, claiming the land for God. Abram never actually ended up building a permanent structure for himself. In fact, the very next verse tells us that there was a famine in the land, and he had to leave to go to Egypt. I'll talk a bit about that next time, but I want to focus in on the nomadic life of Abraham, a homeless man with a promised land. The only piece of land he ended up legally owning was a field with a cave, where he would be buried next to his wife, Sarah.

Here's my point. Abraham seemed to be aware of a truth that most of us miss. When the promise is given, we become passionate and fired up about pursuing that promise. This is a tool for God to keep us checked-in and intentional. However, the danger in that passionate pursuit is in mistaking the promise for the One who made the promise. We don't pursue the Promised Land. We pursue the Promiser. Our passion is awesome and necessary, but it can quickly become a detriment and even a cancer if it becomes more than a motivational driver, leading us to trust and obedience.

Abram seemed to instinctively know that none of this was about the land. It was all about God. The promise, even after it was shared with Abram, never actually belonged to Abram at all, as something to be possessed and held tightly. Therefore, Abram did not kick, scream, and cry when facing Canaanites or famine. He did not cry out to God about being forced to go to Egypt for a time, in order to continue to feed his family. He just did what he had to do. God didn't command him to go to Egypt, and God didn't punish him for going without a direct order from God to do so.

I have trouble with that much freedom. I want God to tell me, step by step, what I must do every single moment of every day. I often complain to God about how slow and stubborn I am. God, if you want me to do X, don't leave me on my own to do it. I am bound to screw it up. Tell me how to do exactly what you want, and I will do it. I want you to micro-manage my life. That approach is as sinful as trying to take over and do it all on my own, looking at God as a life coach, rather than Lord. Either way, I'm trying to control the divine.

God trusts me. God wants me to make mistakes and fail, so I can learn. Those failures are not detrimental, as long as my heart is fixed on God and not the promise.

The telos (or inherent, core purpose) of each and every one of God's promises is to drive us to the heart of God.

The promise is never intended to replace God as our source of strength, provision, or joy. The land is just dirt. As they say, the grass is always greener. I will not be able to hear God better or have more faith in Seattle than in Green Bay. Seattle cannot bring me joy or fulfillment any more than Green Bay can. God told me to go to Seattle. I went, after double and triple checking. For me, it became a place of famine, so I had to go back to Egypt for a time. God provided a job with SmartRelationships.org for my wife and a job as a bouncer for me. This is not my dream job, nor is it the provision that God promised. However, both positions will keep us alive and paying our mortgage for a little while, at least until the famine ends.

So, I turn my back on the Promised Land, and it is now okay. I know that God has something for us. I believe it is in Seattle, but it could be Boston, Phoenix, Minneapolis, New York, or any number of places. The land is dirt. God is eternal, and God is good. God is the treasure and the point of the promise. If I hold lightly to the "where" and cling tightly to the "Who", I will find the fulfillment and the joy I desire. This has given me great peace in a time of confusion and turmoil.

So, how about you? Have you ever had a "Promised Land"? Did you get it right away? Are you still hoping to get there? How has God dealt with you in this area of your life?

03/27/2012

It has been a pretty incredible Lent for me. For the uninitiated Catholics reading this, Lent is a tradition in liturgical churches where we spend the 40 days before Holy Week and Easter in preparation and introspection. The number 40 is quite significant in the scriptural narrative, and it represents a spiritual fullness or completion. In the case of Lent, we are grabbing on to the 40 years that the Israelites wandered in the wilderness before being able to enter the Promised Land. We are also connecting to the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness, fasting and facing the temptations common to the human experience.

Lent, then, is all about the wilderness. Lent is fun! Not really, but it has become a current expression of faith, even in many traditionally non-liturgical churches. When I was first starting in non-Catholic ministry, I would hear many Evangelical pastors and leaders speak of Lent as being "way too Catholic". As my favorite Christian artist, the late Rich Mullins, always used to say, "I would love to be Catholic, but I am not brave or strong enough to go the whole way." I think a lot of Evangelicals really enjoy the we-can-do-whatever-we-want autonomy of their faith tradition a little too much, to the point of ignoring the contemplation, discipleship, introspection, and spiritual disciplines that add such richness and depth to the fabric of faith. That is an admitted generalization, but it does my heart good to see some of these powerful (dare I say?) works fold into the dough of the Body of Christ like a little yeast.

I did not intend to pay too much attention to Lent this year. I was thinking of fasting from Lent for one year, because I had observed and celebrated this time for every year of my life. I think I even fasted from formula at 3 months of age for my first Lenten season. I felt I had earned a break. It has become such an ingrained discipline in me, however, that this became the most intensely impactful Lenten time ever in my memory. I felt every moment and was lucidly present to all of the subtle images, feelings, and experiences of this wilderness this year, even without being a willing participant.

No, the wilderness is not fun, and we all would rather avoid it, but it is a central aspect of being human. We enter and walk through wild and desolate places many times throughout the journey of life. We are wilderness wanderers. Yet, when we are in the wilderness, we want to get out of those places as fast as possible, and get ourselves to the warmth and provision of safe, green pastures. Yet, if we take our focus off of escape and turn it, instead, toward identifying the Presence of God IN the wilderness, the effect of such practice will unterly transform our lives. It's funny, because we always associate God with the happy feelings and good time seasons of life, but God is so much more imminent and immediate in our dryness, in our yearning, and in the smaller, numerous deaths through which we travel. We want to "stay happy", so we miss God, in whom our happiness becomes joy.

Right before Ash Wednesday, the traditional start of Lent, I was laid off of my job. I had moved here to Seattle with all kinds of hopes and dreams to be a part of a healthy, solid community for a short season, without having to lead as the point person. I would work a secular job, and it would be a sabbatical for my wife and me after more than 40 years (there's that number again) of combined ministry experience. This job was an open door and a chance to be refreshed. I would move the rest of the family here, and the abundance of great theater opportunities in Seattle would be incredible for Teresa. Money and financial provision are not the answer to any of our problems, nor are they the source of life. Only Jesus has that place. However, removing the stress and desperation often associated with those things sure seems to make it easier to focus on the more important, life-direction stuff. At least that's what I thought before this year...

There has been so much struggle for me throughout this season. It has felt, at times, like all wilderness, without an oasis or a break. What I thought I wanted most was provision, so I would be free to finally remove desperation as an obstacle to connection. What I have learned in the wilderness is that this way of thinking is backward and far too restrictive. I limit God because of my small vision. Connection to God and other human persons is the ultimate goal. The Kingdom of God is all about love and connection. If I seek first the Kingdom, then all the rest of the provision will be added to me.

In that vein, we have made the decision that Eli and I are going back to Green Bay for a while. I miss my wife and daughters so much, I actually feel physical pain. At the same time, I have made so many connections with the community here. Maybe that might be part of what this has all been about. Lent is a simplification of our lives. It is a stripping away, for a season, of all that we deem as important and necessary, in order to have the revelation of God in our lives of what is truly important and necessary.

That requires a great deal of trust, however, on our parts. Believing in God is simple. Trusting God is quite a bit more challenging. It means releasing all that we deem important and necessary, as I said earlier. But those things have a place of privilege in our minds and hearts. They will not give up their position easily. They are idols, precisely because they present themselves as being core to our very livelihood. They are not just good. They are necessary for survival. At one time, we lived and functioned without those things, so the truth is quite contrary to what they present. They only became a need once we became aware of whatever temporal desire they satisfy. The trick is to identify the seduction and the deception. As a result of this interplay among the warring factions of Immediate Need, Temporal Desire, Eternal Destiny, and the Sovereignty of God, we are left confused and disoriented. All of these things call to us to turn toward each of them. Only one of them is worth our allegiance: the Sovereignty of God. However, the still, small voice of God can be drowned out by the screaming immanence of Temporal Desire, masking itself as Immediate Need or an essential piece of our Eternal Destiny. So what are we to do?

Love the Lord, your God, with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

We fool ourselves into believing that we have total control over all of this. We also fool ourselves into believing that we have no say in it whatsoever. Your strength, i.e. your physical self, has needs: food, water, shelter, air, sleep, and movement or exercise. That is where Immediate Need resides. You either meet those needs, or you will die. Anything outside of those basics that present themselves as needs are lying to you. Your mind is very concerned with your Eternal Destiny. Mind, it seems to me, is not about the physical brain in this instance, simply a bundle of synapses and electrical stimuli. Your mind is all about your person-hood, character, and what you will ultimately become. Wisdom resides there, along with daily decisions about what will bring flourishing, purpose, and fulfillment to your life. Who are you? That is the stuff of your mind. Your heart is the problem. That is the playground of Temporal Desire. My heart is a bit of a fickle whore. I will constantly choose the immediate, emotionally-charged presentation of Temporal Desire over need and destiny. Yes, Desire will even override the essential elements of staying alive. This is why the homeless heroin addict will spend the very little money s/he receives in a day on drugs, rather than food. The desire for the feeling of being high is much louder than the need for food. Our hearts are lovers, but they are often of ill repute. They go after whatever catches their fancy. On the other hand, without our passionate hearts, we would have no real color or richness. People who decide to deny their emotional selves have nothing left but to focus on filling needs. What they live could not in any way be described as "life". So we cannot deny our hearts, but we also cannot give them free reign, because of their ability to be easily deceived.

Our soul is our champion. In that center, we find the Sovereignty of God. Now, it may seem like I am overstating the importance of the soul. After all, it is listed second in a list of four, without any special emphasis over the others. I believe it is not really going to stand out much, if we are integrated and whole people. Instead of fighting, all four parts of our self are built to work in a harmonious unity. In fact, I would go so far as to assert that calling them "parts" is not really accurate at all. It is just as inaccurate as calling the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit the "three parts" or "sections" of God. God is One, and we are in the image and likeness of the One. So, we place our heart and all of its Temporal Desires in a position of willing submission to the Sovereignty, or Reign, of God, and our Immediate Needs and our Eternal Destiny are all met and added unto us. Seek first the Kingdom (or Sovereignty or Reign) of God and God's righteousness, and all of these things will be added unto you. Pretty simple, huh?

Not at all. Every time we face a choice, we can either go after what is shouting right in front of us, demanding our attention, or we can lay that down in order to seek out the whisper of the King. The fire, the storm, the earthquake all seem like they NEED to be faced right now. All of those are big, loud monsters. God is not in any of them. God is in the simple, steady, tiny whisper of the One, wooing us to make a free choice to surrender and to trust. We have to trust that, in seeking God and the Kingdom, that the fires, earthquakes, and all the rest will be handled. God is for us. To trust that is to die. We have to die to all of the rest. We die to what we perceive as immediate need, because God knows our need. If we ask for bread, God will not give us a stone. Consider the lilies of the field. We will die to the passion of our hearts. If I don't possess that thing right now, Ill never make it! I can't die to that, because to do so will kill me! Finally, we will have to die to the eternal destiny of our minds. We all have dreams and and a purpose, and we feel like we MUST pursue those with all that we are. If I don't pursue my dreams, they will not happen. Go after your dreams! You can make it! Death to those dreams is maybe the most difficult death we face. Everything we are seems to be wrapped up in those. If I stop dreaming, what will be left of me?

A well-ordered person, I am learning, has the discipline (never a pleasant word) to make that choice, over and over again, to surrender willingly to the Reign of God. In so doing, s/he is participating in a colossal act of trust. God ALWAYS honors that. Then, God is able to redeem our hearts, so that even our desires lead toward God. We start to truly desire the stuff of God, rather than the deceptively tantalizing stuff of this temporal reality. Our souls are redeemed, so that they go after the fullness of life in the Kingdom and only that. Our minds are redeemed, so that our dreams are given back to us, only this time they have the quality of also being God's dreams for us. They become, ultimately, more fulfilling and powerful than we ever thought possible. Our strength is redeemed, because we are able to have God give us what we need, and we don't fill our bodies with all sorts of destructive addictions and garbage. So we become fully integrated and whole, no longer divided up by 4 competing entities and sets of interests.

My dream is to become the writer, speaker, teacher, and coach that I was meant to be. I came to Seattle, a city that fits me and my dreams like a glove, and I found a great community of people with whom I could worship God and discover God's purposes for me. My physical needs were met through a great job. All was good. Hmmm.

So, God stripped away what wasn't God. It turns out that the job wasn't meeting my needs at all. I was far away from my family, so I was really lonely. I brought Eli here, and we had an incredible time together, but we both felt like things were hard without my wife and two daughters. God was meeting my needs, and, by taking the job away, God showed me that truth, and the reality of my need for my wife and girls. I was panicked, because I didn't see any way that my dreams could be pursued now. Also, I didn't have the money to go to Green Bay to fill my newly discovered need. I had asked for bread, and God had given me a bunch of rocks. God showed me that my desire for a secure, steady paycheck was something I had not yet surrendered. My belief that my dreams could ONLY be fulfilled in Seattle, and the desire to be here, was also something I had not yet surrendered. My need for food and shelter, while facing an empty bank account and no funds to pay rent was something I had not yet surrendered. I was locked and stuck in how I thought this whole thing would go. It became the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE for me, and I worshipped all of my plans as an idol. God had not been giving me stones, but had been sustaining me all along. I was simply wrong about the nature of "need". I believed that I needed a steady job and to stay in Seattle. God showed me that I had needs that were much more central and basic. I need to be reunited with my family, have food, have shelter. All of those things are there for me. I just had to surrender how I thought it should work and let God be sovereign.

This has been a difficult time, but God is good. I had to die to a job being what I need. It helped us get caught up a bit, but we are now much more in debt than we were before coming here. I will leave here owing more than $7000, and I will be immediately pursued by collections upon my departure. I have to die to my desire for good credit, because God will work all of this out. You all were the hand of God a couple of weeks ago, as you shocked and awed me with your generosity. We are up in the air on what I will do for a living, but God will work that out as well. I want to come back to Seattle soon, but I have to die to that. God will work it out. It's been a lot of dying, but I am learning to seek first the Kingdom.

I am sorry for how long and convoluted all of this is, but I am still working it all out, even as I write. Please keep praying for us, and, if you want to help beyond that, you can donate to the right. Anything would be treasured. Seek first the Kingdom. I'll write again soon!

03/22/2012

Since moving to Seattle, I have grown to really love this city. It has everything that I could want in terms of opportunities and pace of life. I don't really even mind the weather. With few exceptions, I have at least gotten glimpses of the sun every day since my arrival. Sometimes it can be rough. There was a 2 hour delay for school last Tuesday in Issaquah, because we were hit the previous evening by the full fury of nature's wrath in the form of a blizzard. We woke up to the school delay notice and a full one eighth of an inch of fresh snow on the ground. That morning, Eli and I looked outside, looked at each other, and he asked, "Should we put the chains on the tires?"

Twenty years from now, I am going to be the salty old Seattle-hipster sailor guy in my battered peacoat, eye patch, and an ironic t-shirt, sitting in a coffee shop (no one here goes to bars) and spinning my gruff-voiced tale of the "Snowstorm of March, 2012".

But the weather is not that ferocious. We actually had fewer days of sunshine each year in Green Bay, on average, than they do here. In Green Bay we didn't want to see the sun in winter, because clear skies meant -30 degree temperatures.

There is, however, one aspect of life in the Pacific Northwest that has earned my vehement hatred and ire. It has helped me understand why Seattle-based bands like Pearl Jam and Nirvana had managed to be so angry all the time, even after growing up as privileged caucasians in an affluent area. Once I experienced this, I was ready to start my own grunge band with angst-infused music. You know what it is? I'm sure the suspense is killing you, so I won't drag it out. The thing I can't stand about Seattle is...going to be revealed right after the break! (cue cheesy audience "AWWWW!!")

Just kidding. I hate the drivers. Actually, hate is not a strong enough word for what I feel. The drivers here cannot be called "aggressive" drivers, "defensive" drivers, or even "careful" drivers. I would call them "Fearful Drivers". I have driven all over the US, and I was sure that Minnesota or Atlanta drivers were the worst by far, but they are dwarfed by the sheer insanity of the Seattle Driver. Seattle drivers are dangerously nice, horrendously clueless, and fatally afraid of every other person on the road. We were talking about it in our small group last week. A Seattle driver will be driving on the interstate staying in the far right lane, because their exit is coming up in only 20 miles. Speeds average from 12-75 mph on all of the roads. People here are obsessed with their brakes. I'm not sure most of them even know the purpose of the vertical pedal on the right.

Worst of all, merging traffic is an absolute mystery for Seattle-ites, on par with string theory or the sacramental presence of the divine. A driver on the highway will see someone coming up the ramp, and will slam on their brakes to let them on, rather than just keeping pace. This causes all others to slam on their brakes. The interstates become parking lots. There are plenty of lanes, and the highways are more than adequate. Seattle drivers are the reason for terrible Seattle traffic. They ought to be outlawed.

As a good, Midwestern boy with lots of obnoxious, stubborn Polish blood in my veins, I am enthusiastic about using my horn out here. People need to get out of my way, or at least become less of a threat to my safety. That is, until I found out that honking at people is a ticket-able crime here. Seriously! It is considered "intimidation". I have been breaking the law for weeks now, and I didn't even know it! When I honk at people, they all look at me with this deer-in-the-headlights, baffled gaze, like I am some kind of serial killer or legendary school bully. I can get a ticket for (in my opinion, politely) simply pointing out the flaws in their approach to traffic safety. I think I'm being a good citizen, and then the next day I could see my picture on the FBI list on the post office wall. They may be extremely dangerous in their driving idiocy, but it is against the law for me to hurt their feelings with a constructively critical toot.

I read the story a couple of weeks ago about a boy with rather prominent ears. You can read the story here: STORY. Some of the kids in his class made fun of him, and this was considered bullying. His mom's solution was to get him plastic surgery to fix his ears, and that would stop all bullying. He is in kindergarten. I am never really one to criticize parents, because I know that raising children is an overwhelmingly difficult undertaking. I must question, however, the message being sent to this child. "If someone doesn't like something about you, change it!" In that way, it is better to make oneself a different person entirely, based on the whims and attitudes of other broken and identity-less people. Now that his ears are fixed, kids are bound to notice that the kid's eyes are too close together. Guess we should get the head-enlargement surgery scheduled. With a bigger head, not only will his eyes be farther apart, but we can get that ear surgery reversed.

I question a society so obsessed with bullying and being offended. I am not diminishing the pain of children and families who have been victims of cruel bullying. School is hell, and kids are cruel. I'm just saying that bullying is no worse than when I was a kid. Kids were empowered to handle it themselves, an idea that is in the hall of fame for heretical parenting ideas in today's society. But you know what? We weren't afraid. If I was a little guy, I'd survive by becoming strategic friends with big guys. If I was a big guy, I'd get some homework help by defending a nerd or two. It made sense.

Look, please hear me. I can't stand the "Manly Man" rhetoric of Mark Driscoll and others, who believe that a man needs to be a certain way to be a man. There are many incredible men that I have met who are artistic, quiet, and even a bit stereotypically feminine in their ability to share and feel. This is also not a lesson for men. This is for all of us. If we take away the problems of our children, when will they learn to do the hard work of overcoming and enduring? If we attack and sue parents, teachers, and everyone else that has made life a little rougher on our kids, when will they learn to live and work with others? Women did not achieve the right to vote by crying to the government to please, please, please recognize us. Martin Luther King and other civil rights activists did not cry about unfairness, change their message, or get surgery to "look white", even when they were seeing people around them get "bullied" to the extent of becoming martyrs for the cause.

I want to use one more example, and this one will be very unpopular, even for me. I want to put in a word for poor, misunderstood Rush Limbaugh. Last week he made a very thoughtless and stupid string of comments about a woman who was arguing for reproductive and abortive rights for women. Now, this has nothing to do with how I feel about abortion, contraceptives, or who, if anyone, should pay for them. There is no need to debate this on this blog. That kind of polarizing debate is better suited for other forums. I want to talk about the obsessive need we all have to be offended. Fat, obnoxious, cigar-smoking, white guys, like Mr. Limbaugh, have been making stupid, sexist comments in the public forum for all of history. I am never offended by Rush Limbaugh, because I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh. He's an idiot, in my opinion. However, on his behalf, I would argue that it is his right as an American to be a fat, ignorant idiot. In fact, he gets paid to be exactly that. His sponsors also have every right in a free society to pull their sponsorship. I don't know why they would, because they have sponsored his idiocy. Why would they be suddenly shocked when he behaves exactly the way they are paying him to behave? No, this has nothing to do with the high moral and ethical position of these advertisers. They are, in a very public way, distancing themselves from him, as they have done a number of times in the past. They save face, and then, without fanfare or press notice, they will quietly come back to pay their ad dollars to Rush. They know his freak show is the best thing they have going.

Sandra Fluke made a statement in a public hearing based on her beliefs in a woman's right to terminate or prevent pregnancy, and that women also should have the right to have said termination and prevention available free of charge. Again, we are not debating the merits or falsehood of this position. I want to focus only on the offense part of this. Sandra Fluke has every right, as an American Citizen, to believe what she believes and to state this belief openly in a public forum in the attempt to affect public policy. This is the nature of having a government of the people. However, by doing so, she is going to open herself up to ridicule and attack by other American Citizens with the right to make themselves heard in a public forum. I know many, many conservative Catholic and Evangelical pro-life activists who were very offended by what Ms. Fluke had to say. Some of them even had words for her that made Limbaugh's comments seem tame in comparison. We all have a right to be heard, but we do not have a right to be protected from criticism.

Here's my point. I am not concerned with Sandra Fluke's opinion, Rush's response, school bullies, horn honkers, Bill Mahr, Planned Parenthood, National Right to Life, Obama, Republicans, celebrities, or any of the other fools who make their voices heard, whether we like it or not. I am concerned about a culture seeking to have these voices silenced or censored by the government. When we begin to look at government as the benevolent father, protecting us from all of those "Meanies" out there in the world, we are getting dangerously close to surrendering our civil rights for the sake of feelings of security. I don't like Rush Limbaugh, but I will boldly declare that he does not owe Sandra Fluke, women, society, the government, me, or anyone else an apology. If we demand that of him, we take one more step toward totalitarianism. I am not scared of bullies. I'm disturbed by our fear of them. If everyone stopped listening to Rush Limbaugh, he'd go away. That is pure economics. Now he will have an even larger audience because of this scandal, because millions of people will be listening to him, looking for ways to be offended. They will then scream and demand protection from people like him when such offense occurs.

We are attempting to solve all of our societal ills with more legislation. I can't even honk my horn! However, there is concealed carry here, so I could shoot someone. "Concealed Carry" laws are based in the same kind of victim mentality legislation as the horn honking law. That is the core of our identity crisis in America. We are all victims. We don't bring anything upon ourselves. Rather, everything just happens to us. This terrible economy happened to us, even though Jimmy Carter and others warned us about this way back in the late 1970s. Foreclosure happened to us, even though we made the decision to buy a house way beyond our means during the heyday of the mortgage bubble. Debt and bad stuff happened to me, even though I made decision after decision to buy on credit, rather than waiting until I had the cash for that new boat. Then we look to the government for a bailout. Our government representatives are absolutely corrupt and incompetent, but we elected them. Corporations crush human beings daily so a privileged few can become obscenely rich, but we have not staged a demonstration and physically gone in to places like Bank of America to drag the CEO out to the public square for a trial. Instead, we leave these people in power over us, because they protect us from "The Bullies". We don't realize that the cure is killing us much faster than the disease ever did.

I am not saying this out of anger and rage. I already know that a number of people will be offended by this post. For me, this all goes back to identity. Who are you? Who am I? I have struggled for my whole life with a victim mentality. All this bad stuff has happened to me. When will I win the lottery? When will God drop a great job in my lap? When will I be financially secure? When will I be protected from Puget Sound Energy and all of the other "Meanies" seeking to hurt me and steal from me? Why can't there be some help from the government? How can we make it with $5/gallon gas and rising insurance and housing costs? Help us!

I have learned that finding a protector to save me is not the answer. God is with me, giving me strength and power. God helps me move in who I was created to be, and God gives me the authority to act and live in God's power. But God will not swoop in and take my power from me. God seems to think more of me than I think of myself. God is the parent encouraging me to no longer to be a doormat and to stop the bullies myself. What is the best way to stop a bully? Punch him in the face. I am not a helpless victim. I am a free being, moving in the authority and favor of the Almighty God. So, if you are looking for me, I will be driving the streets of Seattle honking my horn. ;)

Keeping focused on just the issue of a fearful and offended society, what do you think? Does this worry you the way it does me, or am I just a paranoid freak? What is your take on the Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke thing, now that we've had a week to process? What do we need to do as a culture to move out of fearful victim-hood and into freedom and power?

03/19/2012

I think the very quick, knee-jerk response to suffering for us, myself included, is to compare ourselves to Job. We are just good folks, minding our own business, and then God sends the devil after us for some undeserved torture. "Have you considered my servant (insert your own name here)?" God asks of this satanic figure. We didn't ask for this. Now God is using us for the settling of some cosmic wager? We weren't even on the devil's radar screen, until God threw us under the bus and put a big light on us! Betting that Job's fidelity to God would fail, resulting in Job cursing God, Satan kills all of Job's kids and grand-kids, wipes out all of his possessions, and covers Job with burning, itching, open sores. To be helpful, Job's wife shows up and yells at him for being cursed. Job's friends all try to support him by trying to help him list all of his sins.

For Job's part, he never curses God. He questions and searches and doubts and gets angry, but he never turns his back on God or curses God's name. God addresses Job with a series of questions of God's own. God takes Job apart, asking him if he was there when the foundations of the world were set into place. It wasn't a "suck it up, Job" speech. It wasn't a speech designed to make Job feel worse. It was an epiphany moment for a very broken man. God was not rebuking Job. God was rewarding Job with a glimpse into the big picture of the entire universe!

I do struggle with the very end of the Job story, however. Job is given everything back multiplied by ten. Sure, the possessions would be cool, but ten times as many kids and all new ones? If God allowed my three kids to be taken from me, I am not sure I would feel lots better by getting 30 new ones. How can 30 new little brats replace the three brats I love so much right now? I'd want them back. I wouldn't want to have to feed 30 I don't care about. But I do not have the universal perspective that Job was given. I don't know on that one.

Anyway, I think our self-comparison to Job is a poor one. Job's story was not written to give us some archetype to neatly explain our own suffering. I have heard many sermons on Job, trying to wrap up the whole thing with the tidy bow of a palatable, edifying, and pithy life lesson. I think we have to ignore the entire story of Job to accomplish such a feat of theological gymnastics. We have to dismiss all of the uncomfortable questions that we are left to ponder. Was Job really sinless before the incident? Was his blessing really a blessing? Did Job like these new kids better than the originals, in order to simply be "okay" with the deaths of the ones he raised? Was Job unaffected, in the end, by all of the loss and pain he had endured? Was he able to look back on the devastation of his previous life and laugh some kind of wise chuckle, because he was, in that moment, satiated by all of his shiny new stuff? Was he really like a dog that chews on the couch and stops because of the distraction caused by the introduction of a new chew toy?

No, I don't think Job was written to be a lesson to us all on how to deal with pain and suffering. I don't think pain and suffering is ever so simple as to be explained away or forgotten because of getting new playthings. We try. We work really hard to make suffering that way. The talking heads of Christianity on television speak of suffering as merely momentary, passing. God does not desire us to suffer, so it is an "attack of the enemy". Or else they take the position of Job's friends and declare that it is just punishment for sin. Many of the Christian TV Stars, remember, took the nonsensical position of the Haiti earthquake being the punishment for their worship of false gods. The 9/11 attacks were God's punishment for the sin of our country's widespread acceptance of homosexuality. Fools and idiots. But we all do some of that, don't we? "My friend, Joe, was just diagnosed with stage 4, terminal lung cancer. Poor guy is coughing up blood and is not able to even talk to his children to say goodbye. BUT, it all makes sense. Remember 10 years ago, when Joe smoked cigarettes for those 3 months, while struggling with his wife's death? You can't smoke and not expect to pay the price for that sin." We all want neat, clean answers. Unfortunately, our search for simple explanations invalidates and minimizes the depth of our suffering.

Some say our suffering is all God testing our perseverance and faithfulness. So, we are no longer God's children, but rats in God's cosmic Skinner Box. I don't know about you, but I have never repeatedly punched my son in the face to see how much of a beating he could take, or if he could still say he loves me. Such testing would be cruel and horrible.

Still others say that the suffering is to get us to the reward. We get back 10 times what we have lost! Isn't that awesome? God has chosen us for the privilege of suffering, because God plans to really, really reward us! I have suffered a lot of loss in my life. I have never looked back on it and laughed. I have never gotten to the point where new people in my life have replaced the emptiness of the loss of precious loved ones. New people are wonderful, but the reward did not make me feel the deep heartache of real loss any less.

I was feeling sorry for myself the other day (I have started alternating days between self-pity and hope, for the sake of efficiency), and then I read an article about the devastating tornado in southern Indiana. I read the story of a poor woman, her husband, and their three babies, huddled in their crappy trailer, praying for God's mercy and protection. Their bodies were found scattered as far as a quarter mile away, laying in piles of rubble like human garbage. What sin did those toddlers commit? Where is their reward after a lifetime of suffering in poverty? Well, they are in a better place, right? They have a mansion, now, in heaven. I hear it's a double-wide! We cannot invalidate and dismiss suffering with frivolous and cute explanations of sin and reward. Sometimes suffering, as in the case of Job, is undeserved, unsatisfying, and inexplicable. Sometimes it just sucks.

The "problem" of the book of Job is purely an evangelical, dialectical one. In an either/or, black-and-white worldview, anything gray and messy is unacceptable. The Book of Job does not seem to be problematic at all in a Judaic understanding of the world. Since the first telling of this story, Jews have had the ability to live with the Job story as it is, rather than attempting to rescue it from being a mystical, unkempt narrative. The both/and approach of Judaism is the only valid way to look at the Job story and our own suffering. Job isn't a lesson. It refuses to be reduced to that minimalist reading. So does my life story. I don't have anything sorted out neatly to have you learn some important life truth, so true that it can be universally applied.

I have made lots of mistakes in my blundering walk with Jesus. Am I being punished for it? Maybe, quite possibly, somewhat. I did everything well this time. I took my time and waited before making the leap here. I brought good, healthy closure with Green Bay. I didn't take unnecessary risks. Was I actually being too safe and risk free? Maybe, quite possibly, somewhat. I have taken unnecessary risks in the past for the sake of following God's call. I wanted to be wise and not make the same mistakes. Did I maybe hear God wrong again this time? Maybe, quite possibly, somewhat. Am I on exactly the right path, so Satan is attacking me? Maybe, quite possibly, somewhat. Is God preparing me for some awesome reward, following a new, universal perspective? Maybe, quite possibly, somewhat.

My situation, like Job's, has no neat explanation. I believe I am being attacked by an enemy that is wanting to destroy my faith and trust in God. I don't think God is standing idly by, enjoying the show. I think some of this is the reaping of bad risks in the past. Direct punishment from God? Maybe some of that, but I don't believe God wants to punish me, anymore than God wanted to punish the family in the tornado-destroyed trailer. I think we live in a fallen, sinful, broken world. God has power, but our decisions to embrace the stuff that gets in the way of our journey toward God have led to a great deal of our pain and suffering. But God, being good, does have a plan to redeem all of it. God wants to reward us 10, 100, 1000 times what we have lost. This doesn't mean that God is naive. God does not believe that we will just be fine, as long as God gives us lots of good stuff to distract us. God feels our pain and loss much more than we can. God has all the transcendence of being present at the birthing of the universe, yet is imminent enough to be involved in our pain and suffering to a divine level. The pain we feel in our limited, human capacity, God feels to the extent of God's unlimited capacity. In THAT lies my hope. I am not alone.

That, my friends, is the Jewish understanding of Job. It is not hopeless. Every story in the Jewish scriptures has, as its backdrop, the narrative of the Exodus. This is a God who rescues, a saving God. Who is like this YHWH in all of the universe? Hear, O Israel, the LORD, your God is ONE. Job is not a lesson. Job is a single person. We don't look at Job to see how we can suffer better. That would be the invalidation of the precious, life-transforming experience of this one man and his God. How God deals with Job is incredibly unique, as it is for every person who gives God permission to move and act as God will. I am not reliving the Book of Job. I am writing the Book of Bill, in partnership with God. Judaism has the Exodus. Christianity has the Exodus also. However, we also have the Second Exodus: The Cross. The Cross is the backdrop of every narrative we see and hear. For both Jews and Christians, there is hope that our suffering does not end in despair. There is hope that it all will be redeemed. How that happens and what that redemption looks like is all in God's hands.

God is a very real, personal, imminent Emmanuel. God with us. God is a very big, mighty, overwhelmingly transcendent Almighty Yahweh. God is Other. God is both/and at all times. God is not sometimes personal and imminent, and, at other times, powerful and transcendent. God is always both/and.

I am completely at the mercy of this God. I can't go back, and I can't move forward. I can make nothing happen at this moment. I am a slave to God's whim and will. I cannot force my own will here. I cannot will someone to hire me. I cannot will money to appear in my mailbox. I wait on God. I am being attacked. I am being tested. I am reaping consequences. I am being prepared and shaped. I am being redeemed. I am about to receive incredible reward. I will be forever scarred by this experience, but my scars become marks of God's glory. An old friend of mine once said, "I don't care if every single door in this life is slammed in my face, as long as the one door that is open to me is the door to God's Presence." She said that brilliantly.

At the same time, I am not a helpless victim. I am an active agent in all of this. I respond and interact with God. I speak my heart. I feel overwhelmed by mercy and generosity. I cry out in pain. I surrender in worship. I argue and defend. I make spectacular mistakes and have great successes. I grow, and I am shaped, by this living, dynamic narrative that I write with my God. My friend's quote above is actually, from her own experience and words, an almost direct quote from our friend Job. He says this:

"Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him." - Job 13:15

I journey toward an incredible God. That God encourages me, loves me, corrects my path, and feels every bruise and cut I receive. Best of all, that God doesn't stay at the finish line waiting. God runs to meet me and take me into a loving and fulfilling bear hug. I don't want to walk toward God. I want to run, fully embracing all of the implications of every victory, learning from the consequences of every failure, and seeing this whole journey as a redemptive pilgrimage of grace.

What has been your experience with suffering? Do you think our dealings with suffering shape us and make us, or are they to be endured and gotten over as quickly as possible? I would love your thoughts!

03/05/2012

Well, doomsday is finally upon me. This morning, barring a last second call from the governor, I will be dead man walking on the green mile. I'm not looking forward to it at all. I will have to walk up to the rental office in my apartment complex and explain that I cannot pay the rent.

First, I want to thank all of you who have helped us out with very generous gifts. You have helped sustain us, and I thank you.

The hardest part for me will be telling Eli after school. He still believes in the goodness of God, and he is absolutely convinced that God will come through for us. I, admittedly, have fallen into total despair on that one. I love the idea that God is with us. However, God is not the one who has to talk to the manager. God is not the one who has to break my son's heart. God is not the one who will be humiliated.

I'm sorry. I'm just sad and pissed.

I don't get it. If there's something I am supposed to learn in all of this, fine. I admit it. I'm an idiot. Hit me in the head with the lesson so I can learn it. I didn't take unnecessary risks. I didn't foolishly squander my money on booze, gambling, and loose women. I did everything asked of me. We were broke when I moved here. Now we are broke AND in debt.

The frustration is overwhelming. The hollow in the pit of my stomach that had been absent during my time of working on getting healthy is back in full force. I am, again, alone and abandoned. The football has been pulled away, right before I was able to kick it.

The thoughts and feelings I have going through me are scaring me a bit. I feel like I, again, have failed my wife and kids. I feel like I can't win, even when I do everything perfectly. I continuously flunk life. I feel like a shitty husband and father. I have felt this way many times in the past, but this time there is a finality to it that goes beyond the norm. I have always been an eternal optimist, but now I feel no hope.

Church was difficult for me yesterday. They talked about giving and generosity, which was fine. The problem came in the prayer time. I held my hands open to receive whatever God had, and I felt completely lame. The pastor spoke of releasing the financial and personal burdens that are on us and trading them in for the grace and mercy of God. Surrender them and don't carry them anymore. Awesome prayer and message. I have prayed that as a pastor for others many, many times. I was dismayed and afraid, when I realized that I have no idea how to do that. What does that even mean? If I think really hard. If I concentrate just right. I won't have to walk up to the office in a little bit? I won't have to borrow money to rent a truck to get Eli back to Green Bay? My wife and kids will suddenly be better off with me than without me? I will suddenly be a productive member of society?

No. I just felt lame.

No matter how much I set my jaw in determination. No matter how I did all I could possibly do to find work. No matter how much I try to will myself to believe. I am just left lame.

Sorry, folks. I tried. I tried harder than you can imagine. I simply have no fight left in me.

Sorry for the bummer post. I am naive and stupid enough to, most likely, start dreaming again as soon as I'm back in Green Bay. I'm also sure that I will be all excited again soon, and I will share all of that with you. I'll even race back to the heels of God. I'm like that fool, mongrel dog that keeps loving his master, no matter how many times he gets kicked. I'm too dumb to leave God and stop following Jesus. Besides, where would I go? He's the only one with the words of life and truth. Plus, in spite of all my efforts to stop it from happening, Jesus has completely captured my heart. I am his slave.

So, another dream is dead. I couldn't make this one go either. Edison screwed up 9999 light bulbs, Lincoln lost a whole bunch of elections, and all of that crap. Right now, I just feel lame.

03/01/2012

A couple of weeks ago, when I first moved my son Eli to be out here in Seattle with me, I had to buy a shower curtain, a couple bathroom rugs, and a set of "SHOWER HOOKS!". Why did I capitalize this rather unremarkable common noun and end it with the flourish of an exclamation point? That is how the company that made this particular set of SHOWER HOOKS!, now perched proudly atop a shower rod, filling their purpose of saving the world from a NUCLEAR ARMAGEDDON! Actually, their only function seems to be to, well, hold up a shower curtain. I mean, they're fine as far as shower hooks go. But are they so exceptional as to deserve the designation of "SHOWER HOOKS!"? I don't see how.

Now, I assure you, when I was in Target looking for something, anything, with which to hang a shower curtain, I did not run to the beverage section, pwn a 40 of Monster and a 2 liter of Dew, slam them both at the same time while rockin my gamer gloves and new Beats, and then - whilst crushing the can and plastic bottle on my head and throwing both in the garbage, rather than recycling, just to show my open disdain for The Man and his rules - steal the walkie-talkie from a 98 pound, 16 year old, frightened Target team member, proceed to scream into it: "I NEED THE MOST X-TREME "SHOWER HOOKS!" I CAN GET MY HANDS ON, AND I WANT THEM STAT!! I'M FITTIN TO MAKE THIS SHOWER CURTAIN MY BEEE-ATCH!!"

I just needed to hang a shower curtain, so Eli could stop smelling so bad.

I grabbed the cheapest and most sincere shower curtain hooks I could find. Only when I got home did I notice the packaging. If I had noticed it in the store, I would have gotten different ones, just on principle. This is what passes for good marketing these days. I laugh when I think of what it would be like to be a fly on the wall of that marketing team meeting.

"How did we get this product? Did you lose a bet? What do we say?" the pro marketing team assigned to the shower hook division exclaim. "Let's throw out some ideas:"

"InterDesign Shower Hooks: When Water All Over the Floor Is No Longer Acceptable"

"InterDesign Shower Hooks: These Rock!!"

"InterDesign Shower Hooks: They're Curvy!"

"InterDesign Shower Hooks: When Accidentally Walking In On Your Mother-In-Law (whom your wife, God love her, refuses to put in a home, even though she still thinks it's 1948, so she has to live with you, so you can try to keep her from wandering into the street or buying boxed wine) Taking a Shower Has Just Become Too Painful"

"Perfect! Why can't all of you be a genius like Owen here? Meeting closed. I think we can still make the lunch buffet..."

"SIR!" interjects Owen, "WE HAD THEM AS A CLIENT, REMEMBER?! IT'S CALLED THE "LUNCH BUFFET!"!

Owen doesn't get the promotion because of correcting "THE BOSS!". While not promoting him, "THE BOSS!" hired Owen as an independent contractor to handle his personal branding.

I don't think this culture struggles from too much intensity or violence in video games, movies, or rock music. We are suffering from a national "Uninspired Epidemic". Nothing is interesting anymore, and we have run out of ideas of how to make the uninteresting more interesting. I don't remember the last time I came across anything impacting, insightful, awe-inspiring, or provocative enough to even draw my attention. People do that for me. I find people to be all of those adjectives. Unfortunately, most of us have bought the lie that there is nothing of value in ourselves as we are. We must change, enhance, self-promote, brand, package, express, and sell ourselves for consumption.

When I first moved here I bought a mattress. So I could sleep. I asked for the firmest, cheapest mattress they had. The sales person walked me around, showing me all of the bright, flashy signs, to see all they offered. We took quite the circuitous route to the "cheap section". Finally we got there, and she showed me a firm mattress on sale. Perfect. I'll take it. My "devil-may-care" approach to mattress purchasing perplexed and disturbed the salesperson. "Sir, you have to try this bed! Lay down and experience it!" Actually, I'm fine. I've bought this brand before, and I know they're good. It's a $300 mattress. My wife is 1800 miles away, so this thing doesn't have to be able to handle my "Sexual Tyrannosaurus Prowess". Do you deliver? "Sir, sit down." I'm fine, really. "SIT DOWN!" Okay. Okay. Do you know a guy named Owen Meany? She was almost maniacal at this point, giggling and cackling wildly. "Sir, you should lay back!" This time I refused. She actually put her hand on my shoulder to push me back. I felt like I was at a Pentecostal Altar Call. I was getting scared, so I got up quickly and walked to the register to buy the mattress.

Two days later, the delivery guys performed their "Red Carpet Service". I didn't have the bed built yet, so I asked them to just drop it in the living room. They were perplexed and disturbed. They still went through the motions of the gimmick of carefully placing the red carpet in front of my door. They could not believe that this was all I wanted. They were very concerned that I would not give them a good review on the survey that was soon to follow. I reassured them and sent them on their way.

The call came that night, and there were 5 questions about the quality of service. The last question was (and I am absolutely, dead serious) this, verbatim: "Finally, was the purchase and delivery of this matress the absolute greatest customer service experience that you have ever, ever had?" I started laughing. I thought the question was a joke. They took a cheap matress with no box spring 6 inches into my apartment and leaned it against a wall. The survey taker did not think it was funny. I asked him if he was serious with that question, and he said that he was, indeed, serious. He sounded a little offended at my "devil-may-care" attitude toward his very serious survey, for which he is being paid $9 an hour to type my responses into a computer. I also know, based on customer service experience, that management only looks at the surveys that are flagged for negative responses, so that they can brow beat the responsible staff members. So, I put on a really breathy voice, and replied, "Absolutely! It was the most amazing, toe-curling experience of my life! I needed a cigarette afterward." He sighed audibly, thanked me, and hung up. He held his tongue, so that I would give him a good review when the next survey taker called to ask me about my experience with the customer service survey I had taken earlier.

So, here's my point. Jesus said, "Let your "yes" be "yes", and your "no" be "no"." I don't think he was talking about making promises or vows. There are times in the Bible when God even swears by God's own name. No, I think Jesus was talking about SHOWER HOOKS! and mattress purchases. He was talking about all of this garbage in life with which we are bombarded. We have to sell ourselves, dress for success, fix our noses, augment or reduce our breasts, be outgoing, cure cancer, and earn a billion dollars before lunch in order to be acceptable and valid in our own minds. That is stuff of our own making. We can blame lots of influences, like the movies and games mentioned above, but that is a cop out. This is uninspired boredom.

We watch reality TV in order to see the trainwreck lives of others, so we can forget our own mediocrity. A kid brought a gun to school and shot 5 classmates at random, and everyone immediately figured he was getting revenge for bullying. No, he admitted that he didn't even know his victims. He just wanted to shoot people. He was bored. Never being inspired in one's life leads, inevitably, to despair, depression, and mental illness. A father grabs a gun and shoots his teenage daughter's computer, because she was so lost in the land of Facebook and instant messaging as to not even engage with real humans anymore. He felt he needed to do something that extreme to get her attention. Whitney Houston's entire life has been a cry for attention and a cry for help. We watched her slowly destroy herself over the last two decades. Now everyone is sad and buying her music in honor of a fallen "hero", when her untimely death was completely preventable.

We just want to be taken seriously. We want to have impact, for good or evil, on the lives of others. If we are noticed, and people know our names, we exist. I used to yell and swear a lot. If I was passionate about something, I felt an internal pressure to make people hear me and confirm my feelings as valid. If they were going to get it, I had to make it dramatic. The problem was how this began to consume me. I was yelling and swearing about discovering, upon getting home, that i got double charged for a 50 cent can of mushrooms. When you start down the path of drama and exaggeration in order to make something as lackluster as shower hooks seem great, then you always have to apply that kind of drama to everything. The drama and fireworks become so constant as to be the normal baseline response. So, we have to go bigger every time, or we lose the attention of others. We have equated the loss of attention with the loss of existence.

I love the DQ commercials, because they make fun of this trend in our social environment. They are selling rather pedestrian ice milk treats. Here is my favorite:

So X-treme.

Lent is a time of simplification. I have learned that this need to be noticed and given attention is clutter. It is a weight on our souls, even more subversive and burdensome than all of the material junk that fills our lives. I am embarrassed and ashamed, when I think of how, when first hanging out with my pastors here and feeling insecure about no longer having my status as pastor, I did all kinds of name dropping and emphasizing of accomplishments. That was all me. They did nothing but accept me. Feeling the loss of all I had worked to establish in the Midwest, I wanted to be taken seriously. I am a player. I'm for real.

Most of what I imagine others are thinking about me is my own projection. What if I was really honest? When someone says, "Tell me about yourself." What if I didn't give a list of all I hope to do and accomplish? What if I let go of the weight of having to lug the chains of this self-created persona around with me? "I came to Seattle, because I believe God was birthing a vision in my life. Now, it feels more like a miscarriage." This person would then ask, "Well, what do you do?" Instead of saying I'm a writer, a minister, a corporate manager, or whatever, what if I was honest? "Nothing. I am unemployed. I send out resumes, pray for rent money, and play video games with my kid after school. My 11 year old is a more productive member of society right now than I am."

People are not interested in honesty, because life is pretty normal. We want sensationalism, action, sex, and violence to help us escape the monotony. We want extremes that make us forget that we could actually get off the couch, turn off the TV, and live. Normal doesn't sell products. Honest doesn't sell ads. I would love honest marketing for a change. Sometimes a shower hook is just a shower hook. We could just let it be that, rather than try to make an X-Games event around it. I came up with some ideas for honesty-based marketing pitches:

Iowa Tourism - "Visit Iowa: Flat. Hot. Corn."

The Clapper - "For People Too Fat and Lazy To Turn Off a Light"

American Idol - "We Should Have Been Cancelled 4 Years Ago"

Scott Walker Campaign - "He Should Have Been Cancelled 4 Years Ago"

Ghost Rider 2 - "It Sucks. See It Anyway, Because It'll Help Nicholas Cage Pay His Tax Bill. That Could Result In Less Nicholas Cage Movies, At Least Theoretically."

Trojan Condoms - "Because Some People Shouldn't Breed"

I know I need to learn to believe in my worth. I also need to be able to release my need to be useful to God and to people. I need to stop seeing my worth in my gifts, talents, and production. I think that is clutter that we can all benefit from releasing.

When have you felt like you had to sell yourself to feel legitimate? How can we release that burden and see ourselves as valued and real by God? How can we just let our "yes" be "yes", and our "no" be "no"? How about coming up with some other honest advertising pitch ideas?